Bank Rakyat managing director Datuk Mustafha Abd Razak and the bank's chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Zainal were charged in the Sessions Court here today with criminal breach of trust and abetment respectively, involving RM14,991,283.20.

Both pleaded not guilty before judge Madihah Harullah.

Mustafha, 48, allegedly committed the offence related to the bank's group marketing expenditure allocation, at Menara Kembar Bank Rakyat, No. 33 Jalan Travers here on March 11. The charge is under Section 409 of the Penal Code.

Abdul Aziz, 65, stands accused of abetting Mustafha at the same place and date. The charge is under Section 109 read with Section 409 of the Penal Code.

If found guilty, they can be sentenced to a maximum 20 years in jail with whipping, and liable to a fine, each.

Abdul Aziz was represented by counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and Mustafha, by Datuk Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin, while Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission director Masri Mohd Daud conducted the prosecution.

The judge set RM400,000 as bail with one surety for each of the accused with an additional condition to surrender their passports to the court pending disposal of their respective cases.

The court also set Oct 10 for remention and granted the prosecution's application for both cases to be consolidated as it involved the same transaction amount.

Earlier, Masri proposed for the bail to be set at RM2 million with one surety for each of the accused and an additional condition for their passports to be impounded by the court considering the seriousness of the offence which involved a financial institution.

However, Shafee in his mitigation for a lesser amount for his client said the proposed bail did not justify the CBT allegedly committed by the accused.

He told the court that Abdul Aziz has four children who had previously served in the security forces and held high positions besides being recipients of various awards during their service.

Kamarul Hisham submitted that his client had a long service record with Bank Rakyat, and that it was unthinkable for the accused to abscond as he has a family and four children aged between 23 and seven years.

But Masri countered that having a good background or being a recipient of many awards did not mean that an accused would not abscond, "and these offences involved the number one and two in Bank Rakyat".

The judge granted Muhammad Shafee's application to defer payment of his client's bail to 3pm tomorrow for the reason that the accused did not have sufficient amount for it.